REAGAN UPSHAW’s selected poems In the Panhandle was published by Kelsay Books in 2024. He makes his living as an art appraiser in the Hudson Valley of New York, where he also gardens and keeps bees.

Selfies

The Louvre announced that it will build

a new extension made to house

the Mona Lisa only. This

should handle all the milling crowds

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lifting their smartphones to attempt

a selfie with the famous face.

The Prado or the Vatican,

or any other well-known place

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is filled today with tourists taking

selfies with a culture’s flower

as if a feigned proximity

could somehow let them share its power.

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Expect to find them on return

scrolling though photographs to see

not art by Michelangelo,

but Michelangelo and me!

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Perhaps a moving sidewalk is

on order for the Louvre to speed

the crowds effectively along

while meeting this insistent need.

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So they will stand, facing away,

lost in themselves.  All they will save        

are images unreal as shadows

on the back wall of Plato’s cave.

The Facebook Dead

Today’s the birthday of your childhood friend,

Facebook proclaims, as if inviting cheers

for the birthday boy, completely unaware

the friend depicted has been dead for years.

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Algorithms cannot be embarrassed

by such a contretemps. They do as told                                       

and do not know the dear, departed friend

will age no more while you are growing old.

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Some people do not wince at the faux pas,

writing to Facebook, “Please remove this name!”

but use the prompt as opportunity

to send their friend good wishes all the same.

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Like birthday flowers left upon a grave,

these sad, one-sided offerings are but

attempts to deal with loss, a birthday gift

the dead cannot accept. That gate is shut.